Scienze Delltantichità 15 (2009)

SCIENZE DELL’antichità STORIA ARCHEOLOGIA ANTROPOLOGIA 15 (2009) estratto UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI ROMA «LA SAPIENZA» Edizioni Quasar di Severino Tognon srl via Ajaccio 41-43 - 00198 www.edizioniquasar.it per informazioni e ordini [email protected] Su www.edizioniquasar.it è possibile acquistare questa rivista anche in formato PDF. Accedendo alla scheda dei volumi, nella sezione catalogo, si potrà consulate la lista completa dei contenuti, corredata da brevi abstract, e scegliere se acquistare l’intero volume, le sezioni o i singoli articoli ISBN 978-88-7140-440-0 Finito di stampare nel mese di giugno 2010 presso la tipografia La Moderna - Roma GUNTER SCH Ö BEL THE END OF THE LAKE-DWELLING SETTLEMENTS OF THE NORTH-WESTERN ALPS More than 700 lakeside dwellings of the Stone and Bronze Age have been discovered around the Alps since the discovery of the pile dwellings at Lake Zurich in 18541. During the first 100 years, up to the middle of the 20th century, the discussion among scientists regarding the chronological and historical arrangement and classification of the settlements was quite controversial2. Initially they were thought to be Celtic settlements. However, in the discourse of early times and based on ancient written sources, «Phoenician trade colonies», Germanic and Helvetian or even Roman strongholds soon were mentioned. Based on repeatedly ob- served burnt layers, it could at first be assumed that the end of the pile dwellings had been a violent one. Later, with the knowledge of fluctuating lake levels, it became plausible that the abandonment of the dwellings had most likely been due to climatic events, such as floods simi- lar to the «biblical deluge»3. Aside from the «diluvian myth», and supported by single finds, landslides, earthquakes, epidemics, shortage of natural resources, and other destabilizing fac- tors are until today still a possible cause for the numerously interrupted settlement patterns in a «risk landscape». By way of typological method and the applied imported chronologies of the southern regions4, interpretations refined themselves to an explanation of the phenomena. Foreign war tribes and elites were being discussed. They provided, just like a possible occasional shortage of salt, tin, and bronze, an explanation for the obvious change that followed the construction era of the lake-dwellings during the transition to the developed Hallstatt era5. In areas of a higher density of discovered locations within one region – such as in Bavaria, and in spite of the distinct changes of the archeological finds, archaeology assumes a population continuation in form of a gradual change of habitat from the Hallstatt B to Hallstatt C phase. Thereby most of the interpretations rely on settlement and grave finds in mineral-bound soil and less on set- 1 KELLER 1856; DELL A Casa 2005; DUNNING - SMOLL A 1954; KO ssa CK 1959, pp. 57 ff. 4 HA FNER 2005. MÜLLER -KA RPE 1959; KIMMIG 1964; DUNNING - 2 PA LLM A NN 1866; KA E S ER 2004; ANTIQU A RI S CHE RYCHNER 1994; SPERBER 1987; PERONI 1995; WINGH A RT GE S ELL S CH A FT IN ZÜRICH 2004; SCH Ö BEL 2004; 2006b; 1999; IRRLINGER 2002; TR A CH S EL 1999. 5 DELL A Casa 2005; RUOFF 2006. PA RE 2000, p. 32; DUNNING - RYCHNER 1994, pp. 3 SCHMIDLE 1941; WEBER 1925; REINERTH 1936, 90 ff. p. 139 f; GA M S - NORDH A GEN 1923; GR A DM A NN 1924; 596 G. Schöbel Sc. Ant. Fig. 1. – The position of reference settlements within the examinated region from West to East: Grésine, Lac de Bourget, France; Cortaillod, Lac du Neuchâtel, Switzerland; Steinhausen-Chollerpark, Lake Zug: Zurich, Alpen- quai, Lake Zurich, Switzerland; Unteruhldingen, Lake Constance, Germany; Hagnau, Lake Constance, Germany; Bad Buchau «Wasserburg», Federsee, Germany (Schöbel, Pfahlbaumuseum - Unteruhldingen). tlement from wetland sites with their rich natural science potentials, which were found to be exceptions in the colonization of prehistoric landscapes. Here you find the state of research at five neighboring regions about the shore settlement, which, notwithstanding their different research traditions, represent the core regions of the in- vestigations at the northern lake-dwellings (fig. 1). My presentation briefly highlights eastern France with Savoy, then West Switzerland with the Lake Neuchâtel, the Swiss Midlands with Zurich and Zug, a bit more detailed the Upper Swabian Swamp at Bad Buchau, and finally the Lake Constance region. In this area northwest of the Alps between Danube, Rhine and Rhône is characterized by a periodic and non-continuous colonization between 4000 and 850 B.C. I will focus on settlements appearing during the transition period of the North Alpine Bronze Age and Pleistocene at the end of the 9th century B.C. With the absence of written sources for their own territory of investigation, archaeology first attempted to build a typological-chronological structure based on data imported from better documented regions. The Middle European Urnfields and Hallstatt chronol- ogy therefore, as is well known, endeavored initially to synchronize the appearances of Bronze and Iron Age grave finds from the Mediterranean region with those north of the 15, 2009 The end of the lake-dwelling settlements of the north-western Alps 597 Alps6. By nature, the emerging of the first iron finds in the lake-dwellings were of great interest (fig. 2a, b). Iron inserted in a needles or iron blades in bronze mount- ings are significant for the Hallstatt phase b B3, and simultaneously for the dating of Fig. 2. – a. Vase-headed pin with iron head plate, Zu- the late period. They evidence an extraor- rich; b. Alpenquai; hilt tang knife with iron blade, St. dinary valuable natural resource and a rea- Aubin/ Neuchâtel. son for the role of the pile dwellings. The existence of sword graves or wood-cham- bered graves below mounds, reminded of warrior clans. Horse harnesses in bronze from the Thrako-Cimmerian connection in the Southern Russian steppe, bridle ele- ments from the Danube region or carriage parts brought migrations from East to West to mind. In the course of the research discussion, also the hoards finds ashore7, that seemed to have accumulated regionally until the 9th century, played a role. In addition, the Fig. 3. – «Bull-bird», bronze, Hagnau-Burg, Lake Constance (SCH Ö BEL 1996, Fig. 80,6). numerous incidence of jewelry objects and needles in the lake dwellings allowed for far reaching conclusions with regard to trade contacts or migration of population groups8. It is possible that here the bronzes of the lake-dwellings are indeed hoards finds, which, once washed away by water, surfaced again millenniums later. Numerous theories developed in an effort to explain why the waterbird, as a religious symbol, often appearing in areas of the late UrnfieldC ulture and obviously linked to the Dan- ube region and the Mediterranean, was replaced towards the end by other animal symbols. The question arises whether another culture, one that carried the horse or bull in its emblem, toward the end of the late Bronze Age gradually overshadowed the old religious images of the Urnfield Culture. The «bull-bird» (fig. 3) or the hybrid creature of water and land animal, represented regionally a gradual to abrupt change, which, induced extraneously, could have manifested itself away from the lakes to the hinterland where there existed better soil conditions. In scholarly discussions, a new type of ceramics and large barrow cemeteries of the later Hallstatt-C culture starting 750 B.C. had long substantiated the transition to the fully developed Iron Age. On one side stood the pile dweller as the Urnfield Man of the late Bronze Age in the Lake and on the other side stood the Hallstatt warriors with their large cattle as landowners on their manors and the first evidenced princely residences (Princedoms). 6 7 MÜLLER -KA RPE 1959; KIMMIG 1982; KO ssa CK STEIN 1979. 8 1995; AM A NN 2005. PRIM as 1995. 598 G. Schöbel Sc. Ant. Fig. 4. – Radiocarbon content within the atmosphere compared to the cutting phases of the wood proved in the lake settlements north of the Alps (according to BILL A MBOZ 1997, p. 52). It would have been too nice, if the two clashing scenarios of social patterns, technology or religions, could have been substantiated. However, the blur of time – archaeological resources partially lay apart more than 200 years – and the different archaeological principles stood against this. The more exact dating techniques there are, the better the chances that changes within one region can be recognized and/or be compared in various regions on the same level. In analysis and interpretation, the potential of the natural science plays an ever-growing role parallel to archaeology. An agricultural community operating animal husbandry (fig. 4) depends strongly on the climatic development, which expresses itself in small and large changes, good harvests, bad harvests, a healthy animal existence, and existing or missing human diseases. Such developments can be il- lustrated archaeologically. For example, the developments of the alpine glaciers and the changes of the cosmic radiation over thousands of years, measurable by 14C content in the atmosphere, show degradations and improvements of settlement conditions that can be evaluated and rated9. Briefly, according to available data there is, as you can see in the illustration, an intensified settlement activity during the 11th to 9th century in climatically favoured phases with a higher 14 C-production during dry and warm times. Simultaneously, there is an obvious retreat of the settlements during times, when glacier margins extended out, which indicates cold and wet conditions. Through analysis of wood, in particular the width of the annual rings, it can meanwhile be determined via dendrochronology (fig. 5) that clear climatic fluctuations took 9 LA MB 1981; va N GEEL et al.

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